A HEADLINE on the coveted front page of the New York
Times blared out, "County in Texas Snubs Apple Over Unwed
Partner Policies." The story, which had percolated through the gay
press before it was discovered by "the paper of record" and the
rest of the national media, concerned the now infamous decision by
Williamson County, Texas, to deny Apple Computer a tax abatement to
build an $80 million office complex just north of Austin.

The deal, with the promise of 1,500 or more high-tech, high-wage
jobs, was originally nixed over Apple's policy of granting
unmarried partners of its employees - whether heterosexual or
homosexual - the same health benefits conferred on spouses.
Following intense arm-twisting by Texas Gov. Ann Richards, the
county commission changed its mind - but clearly not its heart.

According to the Times account, the county's
straight-laced commissioners felt Apple's policy undermined
"traditional family values" and should not receive taxpayer
support. The country "was not founded on same-sex lovers and
live-in lovers," one opponent proclaimed. "It goes to what kind of
morals you want to set for your community," argued another.

The typical take on all this is that virulent anti-gay bigotry
is on a roll. "It's remarkable that in these economically difficult
times, this blatant prejudice would prevail over smart business
decisions," concluded William Rubenstein, director of the ACLU's
Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. Now I wouldn't for one instant
question that the good folks of Williamson County are deeply
homophobic and homo-ignorant, but something else is also evident in
their actions - omething that the gay movement would do well to
consider if it hopes to start winning political victories outside
major urban centers.

Some employers, such as Lotus Development Corp., provide
benefits to gay partners but not to unmarried heterosexuals. But
Apple, like most city governments that have established domestic
partner benefits, grants them to unmarried straight employees as
well. What's wrong with that? Nothing, say those who view marriage
as a stifling, patriarchal institution that should be undermined
regardless of whether children are involved. But plenty is wrong
with it, in light of overwhelming evidence about the effect of
family breakups that leave kids without fathers who provide
financial support and act as paternal role models.

"As long as women continue to have relationships with, and
continue to bear the children of men who do not marry them, men
will continue to be absent fathers," William Raspberry, a black
columnist, wrote last month in his syndicated column. "The
breakdown of family really does... lead to a culture whose rules of
behavior are established by unsocialized adolescent males."

While the situation is most familiar in terms of the underclass
African-American family (two-thirds of black births are now to
single women), family breakdown should not be seen as a racial
issue. Scholar Charles Murray noted these facts on the op-ed page
of the Wall Street Journal last October: At the beginning
of the 1970s some 6 percent of white births were illegitimate; in
1991 the figure was 22 percent. With the current growth trend
implying a 40 percent illegitimacy rate by the year 2000, the
prospect for a huge white underclass is looming.

It is not only conservatives who share this view. Liberal,
progay columnist Richard Cohen hailed Murray's warning, declaring a
host of social pathologies - including crime, drugs, poverty and
hopelessness?as "a clear consequence" of illegitimacy. "Without
mature males as role models (not to mention disciplinarians),"
Cohen wrote, about 1.2 million American children annually are
"growing up unsocialized - prone to violence, unsuitable for
employment and thus without prospect or hope." He added, "It's
clear that the American taxpayer is losing patience."

Which brings us back to Apple. A corporate policy which appears
to condone relationships without responsibility does threaten
social stability, based on child-rearing within coherent families.
Again, I don't doubt the effect of anti-gay bigotry in Williamson
County, but linking benefits for gay partners who are not allowed
to be married with benefits for heterosexuals who don't want to
make a commitment puts the gay rights movement in the position of
appearing to oppose all bedrock values -- and plays directly into the hands of the religious right, which argues that the "gay agenda" is to destroy the moral foundation of Western civilization!

Alas, an otherwise positive goal - supporting child-rearing
within stable families - is now bound up with the rest of the right
wing's cultural program in all its exclusionary mean-spiritedness.
But instead of exposing the sophistry of lumping gay rights (which
would expand the range of families) with real anti-family phenomena
such as unwed teen mothers and deadbeat dads, gay activists
champion partner benefits for all. When New York state's top court,
in response to a suit by gay rights groups, upheld the right of gay
survivors to take over rent-stabilized apartments when a lover
dies, activists rushed to point out that the decision also covered
unmarried men and women living together?as if that made the
decision "better."

How much more constructive it would be if our movement, while
pushing for full marriage rights, stopped making alliances with
cultural leftists favoring benefits for unwed heteros. As David
Boaz advocates in the January 1994 issue of Liberty, a
libertarian journal, workers should be told "if you want the
benefits of marriage, get married; but if the state won't let you
get married, we'll be more progressive." Benefits, he asserts,
should not be seen "as one more goodie to hand out," but "as a way
of remedying an unfairness, not to mention retaining valued
employees."

He's right. Domestic partnership benefits should be a stopgap
measure for gays and lesbians until we achieve full marriage rights
(based on legally recognized commitments). And, with legislators in
Minnesota and elsewhere now introducing bills to specifically
prohibit recognition of same-sex marriages (even if validated in
other states), that fight is just beginning.

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IGF CultureWatch is a blog that originated with the Independent Gay Forum, a group of writers and activists who focused on advancing LGBT legal equality and social inclusion beyond ideological rigidity and leftwing orthodoxy. more